BizTimes: Northwestern Mutual selects Reverse Pitch winner

Karl Gouverneur of Northwestern Mutual describes its challenges and innovation structure at the Reverse Pitch kickoff.

Socialeads, established by entrepreneur Larry Hitchcock and solutions architect Matthew Salzer, created a product that addressed Northwestern Mutual’s challenges regarding salesperson market potential and referral friction. It uses a Northwestern Mutual financial representative’s social networks, with data science and machine learning, to help them reach the right people in their network at the ideal time. For example, it can analyze social media data to determine when a contact is planning to buy a home, save for college or plan for retirement.

“They killed two birds with one stone. Their solution leverages data science, advanced machine learning and a few other big data analytic techniques to solve this very important both personal and professional social networking problem,” said Karl Gouverneur, vice president of digital workplace, corporate solutions and head of digital innovation at Northwestern Mutual. Read the full story here.

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